Back To The Well: Martha And Mary

"Back To The Well: Martha And Mary"

Luke 10:38-42
July 4, 2010

Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named
Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’
s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many
tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me
to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her,
“Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only
one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

As we continue our study of some key passages in which Jesus has a powerful
encounter with different women in the Gospels, encounters so powerful that they
change either the women or Jesus himself, and sometimes both, we arrive today at one
of those texts that brings up a lot of hesitation amongst some women, the story of Jesus
encounter with Martha and Mary in the 10th chapter of Luke. What Frances Taylor
Gench, our guide for this sermon series, admits is that this one of the most
troublesome of the six texts she covers in her book, primarily because it seems to pit
women against women, and to affirm a domestic and subservient role, especially if it is
meant to be Luke’s attempt to reel in the role of women in the early church. There are
commentators, including some feminist commentators, who say that the inclusion of this
text in Luke, one of the Gospels that was probably the second or third canonical
Gospel written, was meant to ratchet down on the freedom and leadership of women in
the first century, a boldness that would have felt uncomfortable for both Roman and
Jews. And perhaps the other reason why this story has provoked such a galvanizing
reaction amongst some is that the scene is so familiar—the home, the place of refuge
and, in this case, the place of hospitality, which is a theme that runs throughout the
Gospel of Luke. The first two encounters with Jesus we’ve studied in the past two
weeks so far have been mainly outside the home, in the outdoors, with Jesus
performing miraculous events with women, but here, the action, if one can call it that,
happens within the home, the sphere that even some in our culture, and certainly first
century Roman and Jewish cultures, thought women should never go beyond, though,
of course, that is changing nowadays, thankfully.

And so what does happen in these four verses that causes some of us to squirm a bit?
Well, obviously, you have a moment when it seems as if Jesus praises one woman—
Mary—and kind of disses another—Martha—as a way of making a point about what it
means to be one of his disciples. Martha is frustrated that she is being tasked with the
household duties, perhaps the duties that the moment demands with such a prominent
guest in the house, and yet, there sits Mary, at Jesus’ feet, listening to Jesus talk and
teach. One thing must be pointed, however, just something to remind us of some of the
false assumptions we make about this text, and that is the idea that somehow Martha is
in the kitchen, preparing a meal—it is a standard assumption that one sees all the time,
that is ACTUALLY not in the text itself—Martha is never said to be in the kitchen,
cooking dinner, being a domestic homebody, as is often portrayed by preachers and
artists alike. We don’t quite know what the root of the complaint is, what the work she
has been left to do by herself, actually is—I mean, it could have been some sort of
business they ran out of their home for all we know, because, unlike the Gospel of
John, where the two sisters are given a brother, Lazarus, in the Gospel of Luke, they
seem to be on their own and not necessarily under the care of a male who was the
leader of the household, as would have been the case in that ancient culture. We just
don’t know the actual work that Martha is complaining about being burdened with—
and, certainly it could have been helping out in the kitchen—but we mustn’t
automatically assume that such thing was the case. Again, it’s a reminder of how
familiar biblical stories like this get layered with our assumptions, and the assumptions
of others, with artists and preachers alike, layered with stuff that is quite apart from
what is actually in the text.

OK, enough with the possible background: what does obviously happen is that Jesus
seems to affirm Mary’s role in contrast to the busyness that has seemingly distracted
Martha. Interestingly enough, as some scholars have pointed out, this really is a two-
sided story, rather than a three sided story, because, frankly, Mary is simply at Jesus’
feet, silent, and all the real interaction is between Martha and Jesus. The focus rests
between these two, and not with Mary, though one often hears the story taught and
preached as an affirmation of Mary’s quiet attentiveness at Jesus’ feet, in contrast to
Jesus’ real focus on Martha’s distracted busyness. Don’t get me wrong: the better part
really is Mary’s role at that moment—and that part is important, at that moment,
something we will explore late—that quiet attentiveness to Jesus and his teachings.

But what seems to be the focus in this moment is Martha’s doing, her busyness, her
hard work in providing for the household, whether it is being a good hostess to this
rabbi in their home, or, simply, Martha’s work in providing for the household, perhaps
with a home business that literally supports her and her sister. What has disturbed
some is either the affirmation of a life of quiet contemplation, a quiet continual
submissiveness to God, a life that a vast majority of us can never be a part of—this text
was often used as a justification for the founding of monasteries—or, more frequently,
this story seems to affirm inaction against action, submission against volition, doing
nothing against doing something, and affirming those ideas for women explicitly. This
text as often been used to justify the exclusion of women to the ministry, because some
have said that it confirms that the best role for women is one of quiet submission to the
men and male church authorities. Women are overstepping their boundaries when
they act and do, serve and lead, as someone like Martha seems more than willing and
capable of doing—and, in fact, it is something that she is actually doing at that very
moment. And, yet, Jesus seems to be calling that volition and action into question and
disrepute, something that has been used by the patriarchy as a way of justifying the
exclusion of women from leadership roles in the church, from priest and minister down
to even teaching in Sunday Schools, in some traditions.

However, however, what is missing is context, and a different set of eyes, one that calls
into question some of the assumptions you and I may have about the text, lenses we’ve
been handed by a culture that is male centered, andocentric.   Again, it is all about
context here, that “at the moment” we sometimes forget when we get snippets of
something taken out of the greater whole. What we have here is a story within a larger
story, one that begins at the start of this chapter, where Jesus sends out seventy of his
followers in order to share the good news, all of which begins his journey to Jerusalem
and his eventual death. They come back full of joy over what has happened, the power
that they’ve been able to exercise over the forces of pain and suffering, for which Jesus
gives thanks to God. What happens next is one of the most famous moments in
Western history, truly, because Jesus is then approached by a lawyer who wants to
know the key to eternal life, the answer to which this man knows already because he
gives the two great commandments in reply to Jesus’ question to him about the content
of the law. Love God and love your neighbor, all of it, the way to eternal life, is
encompassed in these two commandments. Immediately the man wants to know the
practical nature of these commandments, asking Jesus who is his neighbor is, to which
Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan, that familiar story of a unexpected
kindness from an enemy, and what it really means to love your neighbor.

And so right after Jesus’ affirmation of this man’s instincts that the law of God can be
distilled in two commands—love God and love others—here we have a story to
illustrate the second command, of story of action, of someone doing something.   The
fact that this Samaritan, this one who was despised by some in the Jewish populace
would be the hero of the story, it was galling to many, but it illustrates Jesus’ point
about loving someone—love is something one does, something that one puts into
action, with those whom one even despises, one’s enemies. You can tells someone
you love them all day long, but if you don’t show it in your actions, in your work, in your
care for them, it rings hollow, and frankly, such a claim to love that one is hollow. We
love others by how we treat them, how we do for them, how we care for them, and
though it is important to say words of love, it is far, far more important to do acts of love
for them and with them.

And so right after this en-fleshing of this commandment, this illustration of what it
means to actually love another human being, there is, in fact, another illustration, an
illustration of what it means to love God, and that story, almost a parable, really, is the
one that is before us today, the story of Martha and Jesus, with Mary as a silent yet
powerful character in the tale, though not quite the focus, not really. Let me explain, if
you will: one of the hallmarks of Jesus’ teaching style, something that was unique,
really, in the ancient world, was his use of stories to illustrate a point, and though we
have grown to almost expect an illustration as a down-to-earth way of understand a
particular point, in Jesus’ time, it really was striking to learn this way, to learn with the
help of vignettes that gave flesh to the point being made verbally by a particular
teacher or philosopher. What is unusual about this illustration, this illustration of Jesus’
affirmation of the command to love God is that he is not the one telling the story, but
that the writer of Luke has Jesus’ encounter with Martha and Mary being the parable
itself, the illustration itself, of what it means to love God, what it means to embody the
love for God. In the Good Samaritan, we are reminded that action is required if one
speaks of love, especially love of another human being—but here the opposite is true:
we are told that to love God is to stop and listen, listen to the word of God, meaning not
necessarily to Scripture, though that is important as well, but to the still speaking voice
of God in our lives. Jesus praises action in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, and yet
here he praises inaction when it comes to this moment, this moment with Martha and
Mary.

And so the first parable reminds us that there times in the spiritual life when one must
put our faith in action, one must pick up the hammer and build the house, feed the
poor, speak out for justice and inclusion, tell the good news of God’s love, and bind of
the wounds of those found by the wayside of this world.   And yet there at times when
what is needed is not doing, not more busyness, not hammers and nails and soup
kitchens, all of it needed, all of it valued, as surely as what Martha was doing was
valuable and needed, there are times when one must just stop and just be in the
presence of God, in worship, in quiet times, in a walk, in prayer, and one is simply
called to listen, listen to what God might be saying to you, to me, to us.

The problem with what Martha was doing in that moment was not found in what she was
doing, but in her inability to understand that that particular moment with Jesus, with him
as her guest, before her, teaching her, being with her, that moment was meant for
stillness, for quiet, and for listening to the God who so often has a hard time getting our
attention. The problem with Martha in that moment is that she didn’t recognize what the
moment required, that she was no longer the host in her own home, that Jesus was
actually being a host to them, was hosting their presence with him, and what was
needed in response to that gift was not work, but wonder, wonder at this One who was
in her presence, in their presence, who was opening the door of his generous heart to
them. It is Mary who recognizes that to listen to God, one must be still when God walks
in the house, in the room, in the space within us is that is our soul.   John Calvin said
that there is “a time to hear and a time to act” (Gench 75) and clearly this was a time to
stop and hear, something that Martha missed and so many of us miss in our own lives,
not realizing or remembering of course, that one of the greatest of gifts we can give
another human being is to listen to them, to actually hear what they are saying, without
thinking of what we are going to say next, just hearing them and the truth that they
might have for us. Surely, it is the same with God—in fact, it seems that to love God,
really love God, is to listen to God, in Scripture, maybe even in other sacred writings,
however we define them, listening to the voice of God in others, and, also, certainly the
voice of God within us, that God within otherwise known as the Holy Spirit.

On the cover of your bulletin this morning—yes, please do look at it—on your cover this
morning is a painting by Fra Angelico, created sometime in the 15th century. In it, you
have Jesus in the top left hand corner, praying in Gethsemane, with three of the male
disciples sleeping, unable to keep awake. In the right bottom corner you have Martha
and Mary, added to the scene, but with an unusual twist, a switcheroo of sorts. Mary,
who is on the left, is now the one looking busy, busy with her book, her study,
something important it looks like, but she is not necessarily listening, listening as she
was earlier in our story—now, she is now the one doing, and Martha, at the right, is the
one listening, doing exactly as Jesus is doing in the painting, in the Garden, her hands
in prayer, listening to God, as Jesus is listening to God, though it is not words he wants
to hear—words that tell him that there will be no reprieve from the suffering of the
coming hours. Angelico, the painter, knew, of course, that Mary was not always going
to be at Jesus feet—she would have to get up and do, whether it was studying, or an
act of mercy to a stranger, whatever, and he also knew that there would be a moment
when Martha would get the lesson she needed to learn, that there are times to act, but
now was a time to be, to be in the presence of God, and to listen, listen to the voice of
God speaking in her life. I don’t think it’s an artistic accident that he puts Martha and
Mary into Gethsemane—he clearly wants to show us that, in contrast to the sleeping
male disciples, the real model for what it means to follow after the way of the Christ was
bourn out in the lives of Mary and Martha, a spiritual life in balance between action and
inaction, a balance between going and stopping, speaking and listening.

Still, for many of us, the challenge to stop our doing and listen to God is huge, and thus
that is why I think we have this story, this reminder to us in the Gospel of Luke. I know it
is something I struggle with, and, frankly, I think it’s something we as a congregation
struggle with, which is perhaps why this Sabbath year has been so rewarding and yet
also so challenging and disquieting for some of us. We are a doing people, the people
of this congregation—that is how we most often express our love of God and neighbor,
and there is more right with than wrong with that. Still, it must be pointed that in the
Sistine Chapel, in Rome, Michelangelo painted all of the major prophets and minor
prophets on that ceiling--the major prophets are simply considered “major” because we
have more of their written writings than the “minor” prophets, those with a much slimmer
written legacy—and yet, interestingly enough, at the ears of both the major and minor
prophets on the Sistine Chapel are cherubim, angels—but only the major prophets are
actually shown to be listening to the angels in Michelangelo’s masterpiece. To be still
before the still speaking One, to be quiet before the living God, that is still something
that we, you and me, and perhaps this church itself, is still trying to learn, even after all
these years of hearing this story of Martha and Jesus, and Mary. Amen.